Brief History(1906-1913) - The firsts instruments installed at Fabra observatory were a Cancani vertical pendulum, and Agamennone vertical pendulum, both for the recording of the horizontal components, and a Vicentini microseismograph recording the three components. All of them were mechanical instruments. The Agamennone record was on ink paper and the Cancani and Vicentini record on smoked paper. Also an Agamennone seismoscope for horizontal and vertical components, with a clock, was present. All the instruments were acquired at the workshop of Fascianelli, in Rome. The Agamennone and Cancani pendulums suffered several reformations in this period.

(1914-1966)  The recording room was rearranged and only the Vicentini microseismograph was preserved. The record of the E-W component was soon discarded. A couple of Mainka pendulums (from J. & A. Bosch) were installed to complete the recording instruments. They were mechanical instruments with smoked paper record. For a period of more than seventy five years the seismographs did not suffer any alteration given origin to a long and stable record series.

(1966-1985)  A set of three short period Hiller-Stuttgart electromagnetic seismographs (build by Askania) joined the recording equipment. The galvanometric record was performed on photographic paper. The Mainkas and Vicentini instruments were also recording.